Thomas Ravely:  

b at a real television production house "EmCom". We made everything from MTV videos to Kathy Smith excerise videos. My great story there is the day Hal Brooks the Olympic hockey coach took my (Lincoln Deli) lunch. I had to eat with the crew that sucked! Worked at EmCom til it closed it doors, then what? I found out the cable shopping channel Cable Value Network (sucked up by QVC) needed a master control operator. What a boring job. Nothing to do except wait for the half hour so I could do something. Lasted there one year and bailed for an opening at the PBS / TLC channel show HOMETIME. I was their production engineer. Setting the cameras, micing the hosts. Sat and Ate most of the time. It was hurry up and wait job. It was back in Cincinnati that I met some of my relatives that I had never met before. It was the meeting that send me on a journey of discovery. I told Dean Johnson the host and owner of HOMETIME, I was quitting him and moving to North Dakota. He said your crazy, and he was right. I never regretted it thou. I left everything and everyone to find my life in North Dakota. That was in 1989. I've been here ever since. I started with running a NAPA parts store in the town of LaMoure ND. Lasted at that for a year, moved on to the town of Jamestown ND where I live today. I worked in a lumber yard, Holiday gas station, Wal mart. It was at this time that I started my own production company LAST MINUTE PRODUCTIONS. I do industrial videos and mom/pop projects. I did this job for 20 years. While working these jobs I kept trying to get into the only televison work they had in Jamestown, their cable company, Cable Services inc. Three times I tried, three times they turned me down. The fourth time they called me at Wal mart. Interviewed me, and told me I should know in a week if I have the job. A week went by and nothing. So I called the couple that own the cable company, the husband said "didn't my wife call you?" "You've been hired for a week" and now I have been here working for the them now for 17 years. I'm what I have always wanted to be a one man production department. Ugh! High School, Retail and Television have kept me going thru the years. Thanks to my dad and the love of commercials as a kid. If I did not do this I would just be another grease monkey working on your car. Drop me a line and say Hi!